


Night Song

by mautadite



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 21:11:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5020669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mautadite/pseuds/mautadite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At night, Furiosa is most like herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Glinda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/gifts).



> As far as I can tell, only two of the Vuvalini survived to the end of the movie. I ignored that. I gave them names, which you can find [here](https://40.media.tumblr.com/e210ff994514f1c64e8101518891bb27/tumblr_nwnl7rFZsf1qbfw6oo1_540.png). Shout out to [acquacola](http://acquacola.tumblr.com/post/125966296997/i-wanted-to-do-something-with-the-vuvalini-but), from whose art I borrowed a couple names. I read the comics; I borrowed one or two things from them, and flat out ignored the rest.
> 
> **Warnings for mentions of past rape/abuse.**
> 
> Hope you enjoy, my dear! <3

_the days stand up to bless me_  
_as i die_  
_bedded on my dying century_  
_dreaming the century’s youth_  
_in a good place that’s gone_  
_among the folk i loved_

_“Verse in August” - Eric Roach_

*

Vigil takes to the Biodome more than any other place in the Citadel. Ironical, that. Seeing as it’s the one place that Toast had sworn she would never return to, not even if a screaming mayhem of cars tried to drag her back. It’s not the memories, so much; those dog her everywhere, sleeping and waking, gardening and ploughing, while she’s swatting at the war pups running round her legs. More like the sounds. The lack of them. The gong, echo-like, that clangs off the walls when the door closes and the locks engage.

Somewhere in Toast is a wild thing, and that part of her had rebelled at being locked away. Sometimes she thinks her love for Furiosa has three quarters to do with the woman herself, one quarter to do with the sweet sound that night when the wind swept low and for the first time in a long count of times, she’d heard that big door slam _behind_ her.

Vigil loves the Biodome though. She spends most of her days there, Racine with her more often than not, looking out of the wide windows. When Toast comes up to visit them, as she inevitably does each week, they’re always at that window.

“A sniper’s dream,” Vigil likes to say, and she says it today too. “The perfect perch, lots of cover, got the whole fortress right in ya sights. Place like this, I could have had the War of the Lizards over in fifteen seconds rather than fifteen minutes.”

“One man, one bullet,” Racine remarks dryly, and they both cackle.

Toast sits amidst the pillows, chin in hands that are going callused. The day is wearing on; it’ll soon be night, and with the nights come Furiosa, back from her scouting parties and supply runs. She always knows where to find Toast; she has since the first day she started looking.

“Sounds like a helluva story, old girls,” Toast says, and settles in to listen.

*

Of the seven they met, five of the Vuvalini survive to see the Citadel.

At first, they had thought it four. They find Maadi Strong on the first of many rides into the desert, searching for survivors and war boys who weren’t too far gone to save. It is a miracle that she survives. She had dragged herself, eyes bloody and empty, into the partial shade of an outcropping of rock, ever clinging to the Valkyrie and the sacrifice that she’d made with her body. The war boys were human shields for Immortan Joe one and all, and it was hideous, but the Valkyrie’s body draped over Maadi’s, hair like black wings, was beautiful. 

Toast had taught herself not to cry, not for herself, at least. She grew up in a world where water was too precious to squander on grief or misery, and it hurt to see the desert drink up your tears and offer nothing back but a demand for more. When she becomes Joe’s wife, she refuses to let him see how much he hurts her, and instead her lips are bitten raw from fighting back tears. With every bruise, every cut, she suffocates the urge to cry, and makes herself iron against it, a bitter steel.

For those she loves, though… she weeps like any other. She cries for Splendid, who had made her strong. She cries for Miss Giddy, who had made her wise. She cries for Furiosa, when she lies fading in the backseat of Immortan Joe’s car, Max babbling and muttering and sticking her with needles. For Furiosa, who had given her everything, her sobs stab her throat like pins when she tries to swallow them.

It is the same with the Valkyrie. When they put her to rest, when Furiosa, Vigil, Atomic Annie, the Anjea, Maadi Strong and Racine heft and drag the stones for her cairn one by one, when their voices bounce off the towers of the Citadel in a mournful ululation, Toast feels an intense weeping building in her chest. The Keeper’s body was unrecoverable, lost in the explosion that had taken Nux and Rictus, but they sing for her too, Racine’s voice thrilling above the rest. 

Toast wipes at her eyes. She had not known the women long, but it feels like a lifetime, because out here, everything is hard and ageless. Her tears are for the Valkyrie and the Keeper of the Seeds, but they are also for Furiosa, who must mourn once again an incredible loss. 

That evening, when five of the Vuvalini and a long lost sixth gather, songs sweep between the towers like wind. Furiosa doesn’t cry, but Toast, touching faintly at the small of her back, does it for them both.

*

Toast has always had a certain fondness for nameless things. It makes what she and Furiosa now have all the more precious to her. 

It starts on an arid morning while Furiosa is still recovering. It is Toast’s turn to bring her the morning meal, to coax Furiosa back into her thin bed when she tries to rise from it.

This morning, Furiosa, slowly regaining her strength, refuses to be coaxed. Says that there is too much work to do, too much that needs her help. Even without her metal arm, it takes all of Toast’s strength to keep her from reaching the door. She can feel the moment when Furiosa stops resisting, and lets herself be pushed back against the pallet, her mouth in a wry line. Toast sits on her lap to anchor her there, and jabs a single finger into the centre of her chest.

“Did getting the blood from that mad wastelander mess with your head or what? You need to rest, body mechanic’s orders. Especially after you reopened your wound at the burial.” She rounds it off with another poke to Furiosa’s chest.

“I’ve rested enough,” Furiosa says, capturing Toast’s wrist with her hand easily.

“Well, rest some more.”

“I don’t need to. What I need to do is… _something_.” There’s a light of desperate restlessness in her eyes. “Meet with the remaining Imperators, oversee repairs on the vehicles, help with the crops. Anything.”

“You will, in time. Now come on, I’ll spoon-feed you if I have to.”

“Toast,” Furiosa says, exasperated.

“I’m serious.” Toast hears her voice going plaintive, and doesn’t spare the time to be irritated at herself. “We’re handling things. You should see Capable. She has such a knack with those war pups I’m going to start calling her White Thumb. The Dag has started planting some of those seeds the Keeper gave her, got all these big plans to expand the gardens. And there are more and more people coming to the Citadel every day, and Cheedo tries to help them all. Sees that they get food, distributes what medicine we have, looks after their kids… she’s amazing with the little brats.”

That’s the Dag’s name for them, Cheedo’s little brats. Toast finds herself saying it with almost as much affection as they do.

Furiosa’s eyes glitter like a mirage. 

“And you?”

Toast shrugs. “I go where I’m needed, do a little bit of everything. We’re managing. You’d…” She clears her throat. “I think you’d be proud.”

The Imperator’s good hand is braced on Toast’s waist, and the stump rests lightly on her thigh. It’s hot, because it’s always hot, but Toast doesn’t feel the cloying discomfort that comes as a result of most nearness. Her heart feels like a sputtering engine.

Furiosa shifts.

“I _am_ proud of you. All of you. That’s why you need to let me—”

“You almost _died_ , Furiosa!” The words slip out of her mouth almost before she realises. “Dammit, you _were_ dead! You risked everything to take us away and bring us back, and it almost earned you a grave in a sand dune. If Max hadn’t been there…” Saying it makes tears prickle in her eyes, and she dashes them away impatiently. “I… just let me, let us take care of you for once. Do that for me, you stubborn grease-head.”

The tears are leaking back into the corners of her eyes, and in Furiosa’s, there is a surprised tenderness shining, the likes of which Toast has seldom seen.

“Toast…” Furiosa says again, softly and kinder this time, sounding like a cool drink of water.

That’s all it takes. Her name on that mouth, a desperate emotion beating at her ribs like a vulture down to the feast, and the swift lowering of her head. And then they’re kissing for the first time, breath hot and slow. Toast is eager for her touch, and when she feels Furiosa’s hand on her waist faltering she fastens it there, and all she can think is, _closer, closer_. 

*

There is a lot to admire about the Vuvalini, but their stories are what Toast loves best.

Blind Maadi, still revving like anything, likes to tell them. The Anjea too; she has a voice that makes Toast’s bones feel weak, calls to something lodged in her memory like a stone at the bottom of a frothing river. Racine usually keeps up a running commentary in the background, describing who died messiest and which kills were headshots. They’ll go down to the base of the towers at night when the cold creeps in, build a fire that brings the ones who were called Wretched climbing from their hidey-homes, tell tales so beautifully knitted they’re like songs. 

Capable always comes, a party of war pups trailing at her heels. (“It’s good for them, I think. Helps draw the poison out of their system. They need new histories.”) The Dag comes, eyes brighter than usual in her muted excitement (“Do you think one day perhaps my oratory powers will be something like?”) so Cheedo comes too, arms curled around the Dag’s swelling stomach, a loving sort of shackle (“I like your oratory powers just fine.”). 

Toast smiles to see them, and it feels good, because there’s always been so little that can make her smile in these dusty days. A day not so very long ago, she would have said that nothing could come from them loving each other so much, nothing but more pain and the disappointment that comes with fading hope. Before Furiosa, before the long trek across the Road and back, there had been so much she hadn’t dared to believe in.

The stories are a starting point. Miss Giddy had been a wordburger, one of the very best, but even her tales don’t come close to the Vuvalini’s.

“Her name was Strider, because she was meant to go far,” Maadi intones. She speaks like she is no longer in this world, like she’s been taken back to younger days, a cooler air, a greener place. “Daughter of the Sooth Slayer. Initiate mother, Jenja Hope. She would go on to become the initiate mother of many, like Sam Sadie, Chettie the Grey, Kunapipi and the Regal. Many battles were decided from the scope of her rifle, countless men died at her hand.”

The old woman’s sightless eyes are directed heavenwards. Toast wonders if she knew this Strider; she speaks of her as one would a friend, or a lover. Maadi sways slightly in the cold air, but the Anjea is right at her back to steady her. She smiles.

“But that was later,” she continues. “In the beginning, she was just a young girl, and that young girl wanted to plant a tree.”

Toast settles in to listen amidst the crowd, and lets the words take her back.

*

Of the many things that Toast doesn’t miss from her old life, the waiting probably tops the list. Sitting behind that vault door, trying and failing to lose herself fin one of Miss Giddy’s books, because you never knew when he would come, when he would ask for them. Sometimes, Cheedo would be crying. Toast never had it in her to be much of a comfort, and that only made her feel even more useless. The Dag would sing or hum as she rocked Cheedo in her arms. Capable would stare out the window. Angharad would pace, her hair streaming behind her like a golden flag. A lot of the time, they would all huddle together, Toast somewhere on the outskirts of the hug until someone’s hand tugged her closer in. They would sleep, read, eat, talk, pray. And always, they would be waiting.

Now, there is always something to do.

She starts most of her mornings with her sisters. They’ve gotten used to sleeping in one room together, and it’s not a habit that they’re eager to break. Usually they all occupy one of the bigger chambers near the summit of the tower, unless it’s a night where Cheedo and the Dag slip off together, or Capable wants to be alone (or else is called down to the barracks to deal with one of the pups), or Toast drags Furiosa from the post she regularly occupies outside their room, and into her own.

They eat together, talk and tease, before setting out for their duties. The Dag tends to the gardens with fastidious care, carting that bag of seeds around like a second Cheedo. She and Racine are working with crews to find a way to divert water from the deep cistern into other parts of the Citadel. When the Dag dreams, she dreams big, and she wants one day to be able to grow a garden out in the open, like they see in those picture books. Not like Joe’s gardens, cordoned off with rock and rails and his own greed.

“Trying to make another green place?” Toast asks as she helps her dig another ditch in the expanded hydroponic gardens. Her arms and shoulders are already tingling with a future ache. It’s hard work, the Keeper’s work, as the Dag calls it, but it always leaves Toast feeling satisfied.

“Something like,” replies the Dag absently, digging through the seeds. 

“There will never be another place like our home,” the Anjea says, pausing to wipe the sweat off her brow. She leaves a streak of dirt in its place. She works with her hands, like she always does when she’s working with the earth; says there’s no implement like skin and bones and blood when you want to bring something to life. “But what you are doing here… it is right.”

Capable always has her hands full. Indoctrination is a filthy disease, especially when it’s the strain that Joe pumped into the heads of all these lost little boys. There are some of them that Toast would give up for good, the older ones, the ones who had been too sick to go to war instead of too young, the ones who wept like babies when they saw Joe’s mangled body. Capable looks after them all, works with them all in turn.

“I have to believe that they can come through this,” she always says. “If I believe, then maybe…”

Maybe indeed. Not all of them are willing to see her as their saviour, however. Atomic Annie, having appointed herself the girls’ bodyguard, has killed two war boys, chrome drunk and impulse poor, who sought to take their own lives and Capable’s along with them. Not even that fazes her. Toast believes that out of their little sisterhood of four, Capable more than the rest of them had soaked up most of Angharad’s sunshine and strength.

The beginnings of a little town is beginning to form at the base of the towers, and Cheedo is to be found there almost every day. Vigil trails after her as she threads through the shanties, here helping an elderly man to feed himself, here singing a song in a language she only faintly remembers to a sick child. They come to her and ask for ways that they can help, and she points them in the right direction, because there’s always something that needs doing in this new Citadel of theirs. They come to her and ask for _her_ help, and she does everything she can.

No one calls her Fragile anymore, not after what she’d done to aid Furiosa and help kill Joe. Every other day the Dag has a new name for her: ‘Cheedo the Strong’, ‘Cheedo the Quick’, ‘Cheedo the Brave’.

“I can’t abandon Fragile, though,” she tells Toast one day, on the ramp back up to the top of the tower. “I carry it with me. There’s nothing wrong with being a little weak.”

Toast hasn’t reached the stage where she quite believes that, but Cheedo has, and it makes her glow.

Even when she’s not with her sisters, there is much to do. Management of their food stores, organising supply runs, cleansing the towers of the remains of Joe’s cult. Toast always has some task at the tips of her fingers, an errand to run, a message to send, that keeps her mind working and the memories at bay.

When those things fail, Furiosa is seldom far away.

*

Toast can load and reload any gun, clean them, tell different makes and models of ammo at a glance. But firing guns, she discovers, is a different matter altogether when you’re not running on adrenaline and fear.

Furiosa takes her to the outskirts of the Citadel with a loaded pistol, and Toast spends ten minutes trying to hit a particular rock. She waits for Furiosa to say something as she slowly empties the barrel, but she remains silent until Toast turns to her frowning, holding the empty gun off the end of a dangling finger. There are bullet holes in the rock face all around her target, but only a few had managed to graze it.

Furiosa comes up behind her and puts her hands on Toast’s shoulders, metal and flesh, and waits until Toast reloads the gun.

“You’ve got good posture — yeah , hold it like that, a little lower… good — but you’ve got to work on your stance, too. If you don’t find your centre, if you’re not properly grounded, it can throw a shot off completely.” She runs a hand along Toast’s arms to fix her grip on the firearm, and her metal hand comes to rest flat on Toast’s stomach, straightening her torso. Furiosa makes sure not to let this hand get too much sunlight, so the metal is pleasantly cool against her skin. 

She shifts even closer, gets a thigh between Toast’s legs to widen them. 

“Yeah, a little more… good. You’ve got to be immovable. Even the littlest guns are going to kick a bit, and if you let them throw you, you’re going to be in trouble. But don’t let yourself get stuck in one place either. You’re small, quick on your feet. Use that to your advantage. If you’re shooting that gun, chances are there’s going to be someone else shooting back at you.”

“Oh, okay.” Toast frowns, squinting at her target again. “I’ll just apply all that to this one shot, then.”

Furiosa chuckles, a sound that comes up from her throat, and kisses Toast’s cheek. It’s a quick one, coming so fast and light it might well be a dream, rising from heat sickness. Toast blushes a little, and tries to concentrate. It gets easier when Furiosa moves away, somewhere to the northeast of her line of sight.

“You’ll do fine. Just take your time.”

If anything, the rock seems a little further away now, but she concentrates, keeps her legs firm and arms relaxed, and takes the shot.

It hits the rock just left of the centre of its face.

“Yes!” she crows, not bothering to fire off any more rounds. She turns to Furiosa to see if she approves, and not a second too soon. The Imperator is aiming a little pebble at her legs, and Toast jumps out of the way just in time to avoid being hit in the shin. Toast glares, indignant.

“You threw a rock at me!”

“But I didn’t _hit_ you. Good job,” says Furiosa, dusting her hand off on her pant leg. Her lips don’t twitch, but it’s a near thing. When she gets near enough, Toast shoves her, but she can’t help but smile too, feeling quite proud of herself. 

“Time to head back?” she asks, looking at the descent of the sun.

“In a bit,” Furiosa replies. She settles herself on a rock not too far away. “I’ll watch you take a few more shots. Remember—”

“I know.” Toast takes up the stance again. “Stay grounded, but light on my feet.”

*

Toast is sitting up in the Biodome with Maadi and the Anjea, rereading one of Miss Giddy’s old books, when Capable comes to her. Her hair is damp and she’s got a comb in her hand, so Toast doesn’t have to ask what she needs. Toast sits cross-legged on the couch, throws a cushion down to the ground, and beckons Capable over. 

The older women have been quiet all afternoon. The Anjea is sitting lookout at Vigil’s usual spot, whistling very softly into the wind. Her long hair looks like gunmetal in the fading light. Maadi is humming too; she keeps starting and stopping, faltering and then doubling back on herself. The melody thrums low and goes very echo-like sometimes, like the saddest song Toast has never heard. It takes her a bit to realise that Maadi is composing. 

“What is that?” she asks finally, her curiosity getting the better of her. She’s parted Capable’s hair into quarters, and starts gently detangling the first section from the tips. 

Maadi cocks her head in Toast’s direction but doesn’t answer for a bit, just goes on humming. Toast is beginning to think that she’s forgotten — she does that sometimes, loses threads in the middle of conversations , wanders off into a memory — when Maadi clears her throat.

“A night song,” she says, “for the Valkyrie.” 

At the window, the Anjea stretches out a hand and grasps the air, bringing the gently closed fist back to touch her chest. After a moment, Toast and Capable follow suit. It seems appropriate. 

“What’s a night song?” asks Capable, folding her knees up to her chest. 

The question is directed to both women, but the Anjea doesn’t seem interested in talking. Maadi hums a few more lines, staring blankly up at the ceiling, before she replies.

“A song of remembrance for the dead,” she explains. Her voice is weary. “It is usually written and sang by the initiate daughter of the clan member who has passed, but our numbers have dwindled so low these past years… the Valkyrie had none. And both her mothers have long left this earth. It seemed… I decided to…”

She trails off, and starts again firmly.

“It is not right, that she should not have one. Traditions be damned. I will write it.”

They fall quiet. Toast pulls gently at the snags in Capable’s hair, coaxing them loose. The sadness swells in her chest again, for the woman whom she’d known for too short a time. Maadi hums another short melody, and it has some of the same strains and vibrations as the song that they’d sung at the burial for the Valkyrie and the Keeper. Toast doesn’t know what to say, to ease the pain in the lines of her weathered face. Capable, thankfully, is better at words than she is. 

“It’s beautiful,” she says gently. “I’ve heard few things that are so lovely. Will you write one for the Keeper as well?”

Maadi shakes her head. “She is already taken care of. The Keeper initiated Racine, and Racine will sing her song.”

“And who will sing Val’s?”

The question comes from the window. The Anjea is still facing the darkening evening sky, but when she tilts her head, Toast sees that there are silent tears making paths down her cheeks. Toast stills, a palmful of Capable’s hair running through her fingers. It hadn’t occurred to her until how, how deep was the Vuvalini’s mourning for their lost sisters, and how much deeper still some might run.

“We are old,” says the Anjea in her soulful voice. “Getting older every day. We are down to the last of the Vuvalini. There will be no one to sing the Valkyrie’s song, paints the stars with her victories and deeds, tell of how she lived and died.”

“We will,” Toast blurts out. All three women turn their eyes on her, seeing and unseeing alike. She doesn’t know what urged her to say it, but she knows that she means it. “Couldn’t we, Capable? Maadi can teach us the Valkyrie’s song, and we’ll sing it to the stars every night we can.”

“Yes,” Capable picks up after a moment’s lapse. Toast can see the surprise, and also the tenderness, in her eyes. “We’ll make sure she’s not forgotten. Cheedo and the Dag would agree, I’m sure.”

“And Furiosa,” Toast adds, thinking of the miles of unwrought tension in the Imperator’s shoulders as she had carried stone after stone for her friend’s cairn. 

“Do you hear that, Anjea?” Maadi asks. She pushes back her hood, baring a shock of cropped white hair. “They are willing.”

The Anjea’s eyes bore into Toast’s, and she can’t look away. She always has a look of ancient, kindly weariness written on her face, exacerbated now by her grief. She doesn’t try to wipe away the tears as they drip slowly from her chin.

“You are kind, girl,” she says, voice gravelly. Toast waits for her to continue, but nothing is forthcoming. The Anjea turns back to the window and the sky. 

Capable glances up at her, and Toast shrugs, picking up the comb once again. Perhaps the offer had been the right thing to say, but said at the wrong time. She won’t repeat it; it wouldn’t be right. They pass the rest of the evening in near silence, save for the sound of Maadi fumbling her way through the writing of the Valkyrie’s night song. The Anjea gives them her back for the rest of the night. 

Long after, when Toast is in bed, Furiosa’s short arm curled around her waist, she can still hear the soft melody, sifting through her mind. 

*

Water is precious and the heat is abundant, so whenever wash day comes, it’s always over in a flash. Toast is rounding off her morning run, carrying a stack of folded linens up to their room when a trio of war pups dash past her on the steps. 

“Oi!” she calls out irritably, steadying herself with a hand on the wall. “Have a little care, would you? This isn’t the Fury Road!”

It was just a bit of an annoyance, and the reprimand comes easily to her lips, but the reaction to it near bowls her over. One of the boys goes rigid, eyes wide with fear, and the other two start stammering out apologies. They trip over their words and talk over each other so much that she can’t make out their explanation of whatever errand had them running through the halls. Their hands are chalky white (Capable hasn’t yet been able to convince them all that they’re meant to have lives, not half-lives, and that there’s no need for the skeletal makeup) and shake with every word. Toast squints at them, shifting her burden. They’re younger than she’d thought at first, and clearly terrified.

“All right, all right,” she says at last, holding up a hand to interrupt their chatter. “It’s… it’s fine. Just be more careful, okay?”

There are three chirping affirmatives, and then they all dash off down the stairs, at a slightly less breakneck pace.

Toast leans against the wall of the staircase, and stares at the mound of white fabric in her arms.

“You’re surprised.”

The comment comes from Atomic Annie, making her way down the stairs, her rifle as always at her side. She’d obviously seen the entire exchange.

“Well…” Toast frowns. “Yeah. I am, actually.”

Annie chuckles, and with that hoarse voice of hers, it sounds like an engine turning over. She seems to be in a talking mood, because she leans against the staircase, looking down at Toast as her hugs her rifle to her side.

“Never had anyone be that afraid of you, I’m guessin’.”

Toast shakes her head. She wonders if it should make her pleased. She used to be afraid of the war boys when she was younger and new to the Citadel. They were an army of faceless, nameless men, all stronger than her and fashioned to do the bidding of her tormentor. Perhaps she should be pleased that a harsh word from her can send these boys scurrying, that her presence makes them nervous. 

There’s no pleasure in it, though. Just a weird, unsettling feeling. She wonders, suddenly, how she’s never noticed that they act like this around her. The answer is quick to come. Toast looks at the war boys, listens to Capable talk about the progress they make, watches them in the courtyard when they train… but she never really _sees_ them.

Maybe that’s the problem.

“There’s an old sayin’,” Atomic Annie remarks shrewdly, “that we eventually become the people who hurt us. Issat what you’re afraid of?”

Toast murmurs a soft negative. She isn’t concerned that she’ll become anything like Immortan Joe. She’s bitter and damaged and broken in a lot of ways, true. But nothing like Joe. The evil in him had been all too common, and yet one of a kind.

“No, not that, not exactly... I just.” She squeezes the bundle in her arms, shrugging. “I don’t want them scurrying around me, not meeting my eyes, flinching when I talk. I never wanted that. I’m not afraid of becoming him, I’m… afraid of people treating me like him.”

Saying it aloud makes her realise just how deep that fear runs. All Toast wants, beyond most other things in this life, is respect. And respect is far from what those boys had shown her. The trembling in their limbs, the light in their eyes… it had been a storm of an entirely different make.

“Hey, girl.” Annie is suddenly in front of her, chucking her on the chin to make her meet her eyes. “Answer me this. Are you anything like your former husband?”

“No!” Toast says immediately, with the venom that his name and memory merit.

“Good.” Annie nods briskly. “I know that. You know that. You girls’ve lived through horrors that no one should have to. They’ve changed you, shaped you, made you the women you are. Nothin’ like Immortan Joe. But they—” She pauses to jerk her thumb downstairs. “—don’t know that. They’re scared little kids, brought up in a hellhole. These were the ones who were too young to really believe. And when you’re used to livin’ in terror every minute of your life, when the source of that terror is gone, you automatically assume there’s another one right around the corner.”

“So they chose _me_?” Toast can’t help but be a little indignant. Annie shrugs.

“You’re always around. More than Furiosa or the other girls. You take charge, give orders like you mean it. You were easy.” Annie pats her cheek. “Don’t fret girl. Lots of injustices were dealt out in these towers. It’s going to be a while before we can put them all right.”

She leaves Toast on the stair with those words, trudging off to whatever duty she’s assigned herself. Toast presses her lips together, and remains deep in thought for a minute or more before she moves on.

The next time a pup bumps into her on the stair, Toast kneels, pats him in the head, and check him for scrapes. He leaves looking more bewildered than afraid. It’s a start.

*

She expects Furiosa to object when she scrambles into the passenger seat with her one afternoon. The Imperator rides for the Bullet Farm, for trade and commerce, and these trips cannot be put off, if they wish to maintain the fragile balance that they’ve cultivated. The new Farmer was friend to neither his predecessor nor Joe, and it hadn’t taken long for them to reach an agreement. The rig is loaded up with supplies and a full crew, ready to face the Road. 

All Furiosa does, however, is glance at Toast from beneath a dark brow, a languid hand on the gear shift. She’s wearing the kind of smile that bypasses the lips and goes straight to the eyes.

“Where to?” she asks. Just that, those two words, are thrilling. Toast is used to having opinions; the novelty of being _asked_ for them has yet to wear off. 

“Anywhere,” she declares, and reclines with her back against the door and her bare feet in Furiosa’s lap. The Imperator, already starting the sequence, smiles and allows it.

“Detour!” she calls out the window as the engine revs up, and Toast can hear the whooping calls as the crew passes it down the line. She gets comfortable, ready to go wherever Furiosa wants to take her.

*

“You and our Furiosa. When did it start?”

Toast whips around, eyes wide. Vigil has taken a break from planting and sits sipping water placidly from a flask. There’s not another soul in their row, but Toast supposes there’s no masking the panic in her expression. Vigil snorts.

“Oh, it’s supposed to be a secret? Begging your pardon, then.”

Toast bristles a little.

“It’s not a _secret_ ,” she protests. “I don’t care who knows, I just don’t want anyone to…” She fumbles, searching for a word to fit the situation, and ends up finishing lamely with, “…know.”

Vigil snorts again, though there’s a healthy amount of cackle in it this time.

“If you say so. Do those rules permit you to answer my question?”

Toast sighs. She abandons her little shovel for now, and sits directly in the dirt. It’s still a little exhilarating to do things like that, get as dirty as she wants to, not worrying that someone might see her and be displeased.

“After the War of the Road,” she says. Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth. She’s never discussed this with anyone other than her sisters. Sharing what she has with Furiosa feels like baring her soul, and she only ever does that with a select few. Toast says that it’s not a secret, but that’s half an untruth, at best. Furiosa’s lips on her neck, her hand on her thigh, the way her eyes shine at a jest, the way her brows draw in when Toast is talking, and she’s listening as if she couldn’t bear to miss a word… those are all things that she wishes to keep near and dear. Close.

“Really?” Vigil’s eyebrows have shot up into her hair.

“Yeah. I… felt things before, when she was charged to protect us, but I never really understood until later. Why?”

“Oh, nothing.” Vigil gets up and dusts off the seat of her pants. “I would have said longer, is all.” 

She approaches the row, and seems ready to get right back to work. Toast stares at her.

“That’s it?”

“Hmm?” Vigil blinks. “Oh , yes, child, that’s it. Thanks for indulging an old woman’s curiosity.”

“You don’t want to…”

“Know more? Not really. You make each other happy. You’ve found one of the rarest treasures in this world. That’s good enough for me.”

She scoops up a tiny handful of seeds, and crouches down next to Toast, who watches her work for a moment. Among the Vuvalini, Vigil is young, and she shows it in every way. In fact, there’s only one of them who’s younger than her.

Toast indulges a hunch; she shoves Vigil’s shoulder gently with her own.

“You and Racine. When did _that_ start?”

Vigil’s response is immediate: she laughs delightedly, throwing her head back until her wild hair almost touches the ground.

“Oh, ages ago! We were young, fell head over heels for each other. Little idiots we were; almost fell off that motorcycle a million times because she was feeling me up under me clothes. Bessie, she was called, me first motorcycle. I loved that old girl. Had my first orgasm on her. Never was sure if it was more to the engine’s credit or Racine’s.”

Toast’s face gets progressively hotter as she speaks, and by the end, she feels like she might combust like an overworked engine. Vigil is grinning devilishly.

“Want to hear more?” she offers. 

“Um, y—no thank you.”

Toast gets back to work with the sound of delighted laughter ringing in her ears.

*

As the months go by, the Dag’s stomach continues to swell. The Anjea and Racine check on her often, having delivered most of the Vuvalini’s children between them over the last twenty years. Their reports are consistently good: the Dag is in good health, and the child seems to be as well.

Toast is mostly concerned about the Dag. She’s steadily gaining weight here and there, and it makes her look more robust, not so unwieldy with her growing stomach. She also runs a little hotter, and this apparently makes Cheedo want to cuddle more, especially during the frigid desert nights. This is a side effect that the Dag embraces happily.

“Not even out yet, and you’re already doing me favours,” the Dag says to her belly one night. Cheedo has fallen asleep curled up around her thigh, and is drooling in a way that the Dag declares is ‘the cutest fucking thing on all seven levels of heaven’. “We’re going to get along just fine.”

Toast is sitting on the bed next to them, darning a pile of ripped trousers and sand masks. She’s absolutely rubbish with a needle, which is why she likes to do this when she’s got the Dag for company. The Dag’s good at distraction.

“How long again do you have?” Toast holds up her work to inspect her progress. She wonders if the war boy who will have to wear these trousers will mind a bit of breeze on his backside.

“About three months, says the Anjea. Any bleeding minute, says I.”

Toast’s brows crease in sympathy.

“That bad?”

“It’s not all bad. Starting to kick around like a little fussbucket, sometimes gives me pain like you wouldn’t believe. But sometimes…” She runs her pale hands up and over her stomach, looking at it contemplative like. “I dunno. I think I’m glad that I’ll be pushing a small human being out of me crotch.”

Toast chuckles softly.

“Once it’s what you want.”

“Yeah.” The Dag nods once, firmly. “It is. Doesn’t mean I won’t still dream about getting to be the one to rip Joe’s face off. Probably in a nastier way. More painful too. But me and this thing have been together for almost six months, and he’s been gone for that long. There’s nothing of him in here. I’m getting well fond of me little parasite.”

“Don’t let Cheedo hear you calling it that,” Toast mock-warns, giggling.

“What? I mean parasite in an affectionate-like way.” They share a grin. “And I dunno. I like the idea bringing something new into the world. Something clean and beautiful, that he’ll never get to touch, you know?”

Her luminous eyes have gone all soft and earnest. Toast abandons her sewing to reach across and hold the Dag’s hand, squeezing it gently.

“I know. I understand. I’m going to help you.”

They sit connected like that for several minutes, quiet except for the sound of Cheedo’s gentle snores. The Dag’s hand _is_ really warm, makes her feel like the night isn’t so cold and the future so uncertain.

“I would have killed it right off the bat, if it were me,” remarks Toast eventually.

The Dag smiles, and leans across to kiss her cheek. “I know. I understand. I would have helped you.”

*

At night, Furiosa is most like herself. She strips off her clothes, disarms, washes the grease off of her brow, slips off her metal arm, and comes to Toast raw and real. Touching and talking to her like this is the best part of Toast’s day.

On a night like this, naked but chaste, Toast curls up to her lover and voices something she’s been considering for a few days now.

“You could have been one of them. One of the Many Mothers.”

There are fingers on Toast’s arm, tapping out some tune she doesn’t recognise. They pause for only the tiniest moment, but it’s enough to make Toast jerk her head up to meet Furiosa’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, that sounded like… I know that you _are_ one of them, I just mean that if things had been different… it would have…”

“Toast, Toast,” Furiosa shushes her in a low voice. Her cheeks heat up with pleasure. She’d been called Toast for the brown of her skin, but Furiosa says her name like that brown is something special, not as common as the sands that surround them. “I know what you meant.”

She kisses Furiosa’s shoulder in apology anyway.

“It’s just… it’s wild, almost. Thinking of you growing up on one of those motorcycles, riding about the desert, living in the Green Place… Would you have had initiate daughters?”

Furiosa makes a considering sound.

“At my age? It’s possible.”

“Whoa…”

Toast trails off, lets the conversation hang suspended for a while. She knows what she could say, what she wants to say. Condolences for having been ripped away from her family and clan, brought to the Citadel, to Joe. Toast doesn’t think anyone else was close enough to hear what Furiosa hissed into Joe’s face before she killed him. _Remember me?_ Two words that changed the whole length and breadth of what Toast thought she knew about the Imperator’s service to Joe.

She’d tried to bring it up only once, and Furiosa had shut her down before she could get more than two words out. Gently, but firmly.

“I can’t, Toast. When I can, you’ll be the first to know. But I can’t.”

Toast knows all too well the shape of that kind of pain, and she never broaches the topic again. What she can offer, though, are words. Now, she voices something else that has been on her mind.

“Who’s going to write your night song? Since you have no initiate daughters, I mean.”

Furiosa’s laugh is little more than a puff of air, brushing out against Toast’s hair.

“I don’t need a night song.”

Toast doesn’t let it go. “You deserve one, though. I mean it! Everything you’ve done, everything you fought for, all the people you’ve saved... it deserves to be remembered.”

Praise isn’t paint that Furiosa wears well; she tends to let it all just slide off her back. It’s no different now, she huffs, grunts and shrugs all at once. It’s a little infuriating, but it’s endearing too. Toast has yet to say it, but she loves this woman, loves every hard, stubborn, resourceful, pure bit of her, with everything in her body and soul that is still capable of love. She doesn’t know if she’s loved back; doesn’t think she needs to know. Furiosa is embedded in her skin now, like a tattoo or a brand.

She thinks that the conversation is over, that they’ll just drift off into sleep as they do most nights. But Furiosa surprises her.

“Maybe _you_ will write my night song,” she murmurs, kissing Toast on the crown of her head. When Toast looks up at her, Furiosa’s eyes are already closed. She smiles, and brushes their lips together.

“Maybe I will.”

*

Racine’s songs are always beautiful to hear. 

Every sound she makes while singing seems to come from the very bottom of her stomach. There are never words, or at least no words that Toast can understand, but humming, melodies, vibrations, and every soothing sort of sound imaginable.

When the sun begins to fall behind the flat brown line of the horizon, she’ll sit astride her motorcycle on the far edge of the Citadel, and sing the sun to sleep. She calls it her evening vespas. 

This evening, Cheedo and Toast sit side by side on a weathered rock, listening to Racine’s voice trembling in the parched air. The music stretches over sand and stone, and soon everyone within earshot is crawling out of their homes to listen. Racine always attracts an audience, but there is something extra special in her voice today. The song is gorgeous, lonely, lovely, everything at once. Cheedo is crying by the end of the second verse.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, dabbing her eyes with her blouse. “Her voice is just so… so…”

Toast laughs, and rubs Cheedo’s shoulder. “I know.”

Vigil is here too, as she is every evening. Toast looks at her upturned face, her shining eyes and all the depth in them. It’s amazing that she didn’t know that they were lovers from the start.

“Why does she do this?” Toast asks in a whisper when Racine’s voice goes all soft. “I don’t think she’s ever said.”

Vigil doesn’t tear her eyes away, not even for a second. Racine’s song thrums on, rising in volume, and for a few seconds they stare directly into each other’s eyes in a moment so intimate that Cheedo gasps, hand to chest, and Toast has to look away.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Vigil rasps. “This world can be so ugly… she’s just trying to put a little beauty back in.”

*

Toast looks out the window of the Biodome. 

Coming up here isn’t so difficult anymore. Or rather… it’s still difficult, but the reward for doing it supersedes her hesitation. Off in the distance, the other towers, the green saplings of their hard work just visible. Below, the small shanty town, sounds of music and life rising from it. All around her, quiet, peace. Toast breathes in and out, deep. She helped do this. She helped make this.

An hour of peaceful contemplation later, she’s joined by the Anjea. The older woman perches on the window next to her, and her eyes follow the same line as Toast’s. Toast isn’t sure what to say, or how to greet her. They haven’t spoken much since that night.

The Anjea breaks the silence eventually.

“You were serious, weren’t you?”

Toast brings her knees up to her chest. “I…”

“About the Valkyrie’s night song. You really want to learn it. To sing it when we are gone.”

The Anjea’s eyes are as kindly as ever, but they glint with a sort of knowingness that could probably suss out untruths and indecision in the blink of an eye. Toast sits up straight, looking at her steadily.

“I was. Completely serious, I swear.”

“Why?” the Anjea asks, without missing a beat. Toast can see that it’s a serious question, not just one meant to trip her up. The Anjea isn’t like that. Toast looks at her fingers. She knows the answer, knows it implicitly in her heart, but it’s hard to put it into words. 

“You…” She laces her fingers together over her knees. “You’re a lot older than I am. I reckon you’ve seen and done things that I can’t even imagine. But… back in the Wasteland, when Furiosa came out of the rig and spoke with the Valkyrie, and she gave the signal, you all came roaring over the sand dunes in your motorcycles. And when I looked at you coming closer and closer and finally dismounting, and I realised that you were all women, every single one of you, and then you were hugging us and touching us and comforting us…” 

She has to stop to take a dep breath; the memory is so vivid, so gripping. The Anjea looks at her with eyes gone soft, and touches her ankle. Toast swallows, and continues.

“I dunno if I can ever describe what that felt like.” She shrugs. “That’s why.”

They look into each other’s eyes. Toast can see as the tears form on the Anjea’s lower lids, and rubs fiercely at her eyes to prevent the same thing from happening. Her companion chuckles tearfully at her.

“Oh, child…” She cups Toast’s cheek. “We had resigned ourselves to extinction, you know? Ours is not a sustainable kind, especially after we lost all clan members who could help us reproduce. So many lives have been lost, so many traditions forgotten or abandoned. But I think… between you and your sisters and our Furiosa… perhaps the Vuvalini can yet live on.”

Toast smiles. It’s as if a great weight is being put onto her shoulders, but this is the kind of burden that she’s all too happy to bear, especially seeing all the lines disappear from the other woman’s face, as if by magic. She’s never thought much before about leaving a legacy or having a family, but one thing that every person wants is to be remembered. This, Toast knows.

The Anjea pats her cheek.

“Come. Maadi hasn’t finished composing yet, but she’s taught me a few lines. Would you like to learn now?”

Toast nods, her face brimming with her smile. She’d promised Furiosa she would be with her by sundown, but Furiosa knows just where to find her, and always will. 

“I would.”


End file.
